Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

And now for something completely different…Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, written by Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan, directed by Jake Kasdan, and starring John C. Reilly. A diversion. As with Three Girls About Town (a 1941 screwball comedy starring Joan Blondell, seen at the MOMA just previous to this but not much to write about unfortunately), much of the comedy was predictable, but funny, though often coarse. In fact, here, it was often simply the comedy of repetition. Look, see Dewey Cox try a new drug; look, see Dewey Cox fall off the wagon again; look, see Dewey Cox cut his brother in half again; but Riley is so likeably loopy and the writers keep raising the ante so expertly, that it was, in the end, funny. Full of funny moments. A send-up of The Beatles, not really seen before (“I’m Paul McCartney. I’m the leader of the Beatles.”) and some humorous Dylan jokes, not to mention a Pink Floyd reference. And Jenna Fischer (The Office) as his second wife/true love is fresh and camera -friendly. Full frontal, er, sideways male nudity is used three times in one scene for humor, but it’s done in such a matter of fact way, it’s shock humor rather than exhibitionist humor and funnier for that.

Great ending, too, with a final joke that gets to the heart of parody: Dewey performing for the first time in 20 years, finally weaving a masterpiece out of the fabric of his life, then dying 3 minutes later, in front of his adoring audience (keeping in mind the movie was one long flashback that ended as the performance is about to begin, and then he dies). Then, after the credits, a brief snippet of the “real” Dewey Cox looking, huh, just like John C. Riley. Clever stuff. On a scale of 1 –5? A 3. As with any decent comedy, interesting to observe how something might be funny to most of the audience and other bits funny to just a few. Generally speaking, physical humor versus verbal humor. You can guess which gets the bigger laughs. To the filmmakers’ credit, the afore-mentioned closing scene is in effect a combination of the two : Dewey finishing his song to a standing ovation, freeze frame on him smiling and basking in the audience’s glow, subtitle on screen comes up stating Dewey died 3 minutes later, cut to freeze frame shot of Cox (3 minutes later) clutching his chest and falling to ground. A very effective combination of verbal/written humor, physical/visual humor, and the ultimate irony to befall the character to define the parody/satire. Clever, clever stuff. But still a 3.